Systems

The Urban Risk Assessment (URA) seeks to strengthen coherence and consensus, minimize duplicative efforts, and bring convergence to related work undertaken across the World Bank and key partner organizations.1 The objective is to move towards a common cost effective approach for specifying where and how many people are vulnerable to natural hazards,…

Links from New Orleans BIMStorm™ the BIG Easy Way

The BIM Hitchhiker’s Guide to build LONDON Live!

Participates in the BUILD LONDON LIVE BIMstorm™ were better able to understand the BIG BIM value of Building Information Models (BIM) by following simple steps to create their own BIM in a guided and controlled learning exercise that was part of the first BIMstorm™ competition in history.

Participants first placed a model on Google Earth, moved the model into the ONUMA System to learn how to evaluate building systems, costs and sustainability and then added it to a more complex model submitted for the competition. Participants accelerated their productivity and profitability by hitching onto a simple competition entry. Leaders of this process participated in the AIA BIM Award winning LA BIMstorm™ organized by ONUMA, Inc. As part of the LA BIMstorm™ team leaders helped build a real-world familia Corazon home in Mexico for Don Juanito and his family.

For London, participants could build a virtual familia Corazon home and place the modest structure in the large virtual classrooms of the team’s BIM Education University Campus entry. Or, they could use their space to try out their own ideas. Team leaders provided the framework and access—participants provided the imagination and willingness to learn. A good way to demonstrate the power of BIM is to help many people to interact on a single design project. Getting groups to quickly participate in this historic design competition demonstrated the collaborative nature of BIM and showed the wide-level of interest in this subject.

Prior to the competition, participants took part in 20-minute BIM exercises that allowed them to learn basic BIM techniques and processes with free software. Almost anyone who really wanted to participate could. They followed these simple steps:

They signed up and told the team leaders about themselves. They then received details for how to access the exercises and were assigned a space of their very own—in the BIMeducation University™ Campus, then;

They attended (via the internet) one or more online exercises and followed simple instructions to access their space to create their very own BIM model;

When they finished their personal exercises, they sent their model back to the BIMeducation University™ Campus;

Some got really adventurous and helped the team leaders create structural systems, building skins, detailed program requirements, detailed costing, scheduling, energy analysis or systems as they created the BIM Education University™ Campus in London.

During Build London Live, these were free services and products. Successful completion of the first three steps allowed participants their company name to be included in the BIM Education Co-op™ entry for the competition, the first BIMstorm™ competition in history. The BIM Education University submission ultimately won the build LONDON Live! sustainability award for innovative use and exploration of the application of green roofs.

BIM is booming! And, people are talking. Many claim productivity and profitability increases that may sound like science-fiction…the fact is that some are producing and profiting. Will you be one of them?

Finith’s award-winning books are clearly written guides to achieving the benefits that information models enable. In BIG-BIM 4.0 he continues his no-nonsense descriptions of complicated concepts that made his first book, BIG-BIM little-bim directly applicable to building industry business processes that increase the effectiveness of building design, construction, and operation. With more than 40 percent of the world’s resources focused on building construction and operation, many industry leaders predict that effective use of information models will help fight global climate change.